ChangeLog entry complexity

[Carlos O'Donell]

On 04/04/2013 02:40 PM, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> I'm now asking myself, why couldn't we have both?  Currently, it's not
> uncommon for us to just use the ChangeLog entry as the VCS commit
> message; why couldn't we add a longer rationale there, *besides* the
> ChangeLog entry?  If we standardize how ChangeLogs are to be placed in
> the commit logs, we can even get subsequent ChangeLog entries
> automatically extracted from the commit history, so that it could be
> included in releases that are not accompanied by the git history, so
> that it could be machine-searched just as it is now, with the added
> benefit that we'd be able to manually search for the same info in the
> commit logs, and at the same time locate the rationale for the change.
> 
> And then, I get to ask myself why the heck are we not doing that
> already? :-)

... someone needs to step up and be the champion for the change.

I think that rationale + ChangeLog in the git commit with a post-commit
hook to append to the ChangeLog is fine.

Even if you cherry-pick back into an old branch the commit carries the
log message and the post-commit hook DTRT to adjust ChangeLog.

Then extend this to NEWS :-)

Cheers,
Carlos.